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The Pilgrim Spirit, 
and other essays. 



By G. M. JANES, A. B., B. D. 
WAYSIDE SKETCHES (out or print.) 

THE PILGRIM SPIRIT, 
AND OTHER ESSAYS, $1.00. 

SUN PRINTING COMPANY, 
Pittsfield, Mass. 



The Pilgrim Spirit 
and other essays 



BY 



GEORGE MILTON JANES 



Pittspield, Massachusetts 

sun pkinting company 

1904 






LIBRARY cf CONGf 


Two Copies 


lieceived 


NOV 21 


I9U4 


Copynzru tntry 

CLASS CU XXc. No: 

COPY bi. 



Copyright, 1904, 

By Georgb Milton Janes. 

all rights reserved. 



FOREWORD. 



This volume of six essays is the result of the writer's 
thought on the idea of the growth of humanity towards 
nobler moral and spiritual ideals, and a common purpose 
runs through the entire book. The aim has been to think 
things through to their ultimate foundation and to build 
on the rock. The search for truth is the highest vocation 
of man; he who seeks will find. Truth is not a "deposit," 
but a spring of living water for the refreshment and re- 
vivifying of man's spiritual nature. 

The essays are published at the request of friends, 
and the hope of the writer is that they may be helpful to 
all seekers of the truth which makes men free. 

George Milton Janes. 

Becket, Mass., November, 1904. 



To My Mother 
and 
To My Wife 

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS 

AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED. 



CONTENTS 



I. The Pilgrim Spirit, . . . . 11 

II. Personality, . . . . .29 

III. A Modern Gamaliel, . 39 

IV. The Hebrew Prophets, . . .51 
V. Character Through Struggle, ... 65 

VI. Theological Views, • 79 



The Pilgrim Spirit. 



r 'The old gods pass/ the cry goes round, 
( Lo! how their temples strew the ground' ; 
Nor mark we where, on new-Hedged wings, 
Faith like the phoenix, soars and sings" 

Richard Le Gallienne. 



"Progress — man's distinctive mark alone, 
Not God's and not the beast's. 

God is, they are: 
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be." 

Robert Browning. 

"Identify yourself in youth with some righteous, 
unpopular cause." — Whittier. 

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
you free." — John viii. 32. 

"All the great beneficial movements among man- 
kind have been the work of determined minorities." 

— J. A. Froude. 



THE PILGRIM SPIRIT. 



The progress of humanity is in cycles. One age 
seems preeminent in its influence and, like the ocean, a 
period of storm and stress is followed by one of quiet- 
ness during which the fruits of revolutionary periods 
are gathered into permanent form for the benefit of 
succeeding generations. Each age has its individual 
characteristics and these are summed up in what the 
Germans call the Zeitgeist, or spirit of the age. But 
whatever the character of the times there has always 
been in the world a larger or smaller number of men 
imbued with the idea of progress, — that tomorrow 
must be better than today, that humanity is slowly toil- 
ing upward into purer manners and nobler laws, that 
man may have his feet on earth, but his head should 
be in heaven. Progress, like a spiral thread, winds 
backward and forward but constantly rises and ad- 
vances. There is a divine unrest in all men which bids 
them climb and do their best. This great impulse may 
well be called the Pilgrim Spirit; it is stronger than 
bayonets, it shapes the world and changes the destiny 
of mankind. The Pilgrim Spirit, then, is another way 
of spelling intellectual, political, moral, and spiritual 
progress. 

Abraham, the first Hebrew and the first great Pil- 
grim, went out, not knowing whither he went. Leav- 
ing Haran and his kindred he looked for the city which 



14 THE PILGRIM SPIRIT, 

hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God. 
A larger veiw of truth saved him from the sacrifice 
of his son Isaac, while to the problem of moral evil 
he replied: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do 
right?" The hero of faith is always a Pilgrim stand- 
ing for a brighter and better day. 

Paul was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, 
but forgot the things which were behind and stretched 
forward to the things which were before. The law 
gave place to the Gospel, burdensome rules to the prin- 
ciples of faith, hope, and love. The Macedonian cry 
for help fell not on listless ears and the more excellent 
way of love was carried to the Greeks, the Romans, and 
the Barbarians. Not Saul, the Pharisee and persecu- 
tor, but Paul, the apostle and missionary, lives in his- 
tory, for Paul was always greatest when a Pilgrim, 
seeing the unseen and believing that the things which 
are not seen are eternal. 

The ancient world placed at the Pillars of Hercules 
the inscription, "No more beyond." There was the 
limit to human vision and the stormy waters of the 
Atlantic held tightly the secret of the mighty continent 
beyond. The thoughts of men were also limited in 
vision and only to a few daring souls came a glimpse 
of the immensity of the domain of truth. Medievalism, 
however, was supplanted by the Renaissance, the new 
birth of the brain and spirit of humanity. Petrarch 
was the herald of the revolt against authority, for he 
put investigation and criticism of truth in place of 
blind credulity. Voight well says that Petrarch's name 
shines as a star of the first magnitude in the literary 
and intellectual history of the world. The invention of 



THE PILGRIM SPIRIT. 15 

the telescope and the mariner's compass brought the 
heavens near and made navigation sure and safe. Then 
came the revival of Greek literature and learning, 
accelerated by the downfall of Constantinople and the 
consequent scattering of classical manuscripts and 
scholars. The invention of printing made possible the 
cheap production of books and a wide diffusion of 
knowledge. Copernicus had shown that the world is 
round and not flat. Columbus sailed into many golden 
sunsets animated by the same purpose as Ulysses of 
old and singing in his heart, 

"My purpose holds 
To sail beyond the sunset and the baths 
Of all the western stars, until I die. 
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; 
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles." 

The result was the discovery of the hidden world 
kept unknown until needed by humanity for its better 
growth and freer development. It was the morning 
hour in Europe ; the Pilgrim Spirit was in the ascend- 
ant, and the cry was, "More beyond." 

Martin Luther, another great Pilgrim and an epoch- 
making man, woke the slumbering ecclesiasticism of 
Europe with a trumpet call to liberty. His fundamen- 
tal doctrines were justification by faith and the in- 
dividual responsibility of every soul to God ; it was 
the keynote of Protestantism, the right of private 
judgment. The effect was the breaking of the chain 
of authority and tradition at its strongest link. Man 
is ever greater than any institution or dogma. Ex- 



16 THE PILGRIM SPIRIT. 

communicated by Leo X. and summoned to appear at 
Worms at a Diet of the German Empire by Charles 
V. Luther went under the promise of a safe-conduct 
to stand up for his ideas before the world. On the one 
side, the pomp, wealth and glory of Charles V. and the 
Holy Roman Empire and, on the other, the faith and 
belief in the power of truth and the worth of the in- 
dividual. After a preliminary appearance Luther final- 
ly came before the Diet on Thursday April 18, 162 1, 
about six o'clock in the evening after a wait of two 
hours in the outer hall. Coming before the .Emperor 
and his councilors in the Diet, Dr. Eck, the representa- 
tive of the Emperor, began by reproaching him and 
then asked him, "Wilt thou defend all the books 
acknowledged by thee to be thine, or recant some 
part?" Luther answered firmly that those on which 
all agreed he could not retract, that the attacks in the 
corrupt laws and doctrines of the Papacy were true, 
also the attacks on all supporting Papal tyranny and 
oppression. The only refutation he would allow was 
evidence from the Bible and, if that was forthcoming, 
he would be convinced of his error but not otherwise. 
Darkness had come on and the hall was lit with 
torches and the demand was for a plain answer "with- 
out horns". The answer was given in plain words as- 
serting the supremacy of Scripture, reason, and con- 
science over Popes and Councils that had erred and 
contradicted themselves many times. Then gathering 
himself together, the great-hearted Reformer gave 
voice to his inmost conviction: "Here I stand, I can 
do no otherwise. God help me. Amen." 



THE PILGRIM SPIRIT. 17 

"Luther is dead; old quarrels pass; 
The stakes' black scars are healed with grass; 
So dreamers prate * * 
But Luther's broom is left, and eyes 
Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies." 

Truth is not a deposit from antiquity, but a living 
spring whose waters are for the healing of the nations. 
Stationary truth is a contradiction in terms for truth 
without the inherent principle of growth and develop- 
ment ceases to be truth. The heterodoxy of one gen- 
eration becomes the orthodoxy of the next, the thought 
of one the sentiment of the following century. John 
Wesley asserted in 1768 that if we give up belief in 
witchcraft, we must give up the Bible. Likewise a 
modern evangelist linked together the survival of 
Christianity and the literal interpretation of the story 
of Jonah. But the Bible and Christianity are still in 
the world, regnant in the minds and hearts of men 
and will remain as long as man is what he is, a spir- 
itual being. Without the power of change, any creed 
or institution brings to pass in the lapse of time the 
saying of Isaiah that "the bed is shorter than that a man 
can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower 
than that he can wrap himself in it;" for truth is in- 
finite while creeds are finite; institutions are made for 
man and not man for institutions; new wine demands 
new bottles. 

The English Reformation was more a political than 
a religious one. Henry VIII. not that he loved the 
Pope less but Anne Boleyn more, wrenched loose from 
Rome. The Pilgrim Spirit, however, through the Pur- 
itan in England and the Pilgrim in Holland and Amer- 



18 THE PILGRIM SPIRIT, 

ica voiced the moral ideals of the Reformation, pro- 
tested against tyranny, affirmed the worth of the in- 
dividual, and stood for civil and religious liberty. Such 
great ideals are spontaneous and win their way by 
force of inward conviction. 

Previous to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Lol- 
lard preachers carried Wiclif's translation of the Bible 
into every town and hamlet of England. Then many 
were driven by persecution to the continent and at 
Geneva came under the influence of the mighty spirit 
of John Calvin, the organizer and logician of the Re- 
formation as Luther was its road-breaker. When per- 
mitted to return, they carried back to England new 
ideas of religious and political belief. Calvinism as a 
theology or philosophy dominant over the minds of men 
is a thing of the past, but its religious and political ef- 
fects were far reaching and its waters have not sub- 
sided to this day. Humanity had thrown off the tor- 
por induced by the long night of the Dark Ages, and a 
new spirit of inquiry was beginning to move the minds 
of men. It was a time which had such writers as 
Shakespeare and Bacon and Rare Ben Jonson; a time 
when English sailors were pushing the prow of their 
ships into unknown seas ; a time when a new spirit of 
nationalism had been aroused by the defeat of the 
Spanish Armada ; a time when England was becoming 
Protestant not only in name, but also in fact. 

The Puritans at first wished to purify the existing 
church and thus in London about 1564 received their 
nickname which appellation of scorn, like many an- 
other, soon became a badge of honor. The more rad- 
ical ones became Independents or Congregationalists, 



THE PILGRIM SPIRIT. 19 

believing that any body of believers worshiping ac- 
cording to the dictates of conscience constitute a church 
without the intervention of any pope, bishop, or king. 
The idea behind them being as quaintly expressed by 
Robert Browne in the title of a book: "Reformation 
without tarrying for Anie." The first known modern 
Congregational church completely and formally organ- 
ized was established in London in 1592; being pre- 
ceded, however, by similar movements in 1580 and 
even as early as 1567. The great growth of Congre- 
gationalism came in New England and in Cromwell's 
England and it was designated as the New England 
Way. "These churches," says John Fiske, "aside from 
the religious influence which they exerted, constituted 
one of the most effective schools that has ever existed 
for training men in local self-government." Thomas 
Jefferson, it is said, found a picture of American self- 
government in a church ruled by Congregational 
principles. The ideas of equality, the rule of the ma- 
jority, the priest-hood of all believers of the Pilgrim 
churches led to the central principle of modern democ- 
racy, that the just powers of government come from 
the consent of the governed. 

The ideas of reform soon led to trouble with the 
ruling order. Any penalty for speaking against uni- 
formity in political or religious life is a hard thing to 
realize in these days of free speech; but at that time it 
meant a great deal. The hand of persecution was raised 
heavily against these pioneers of religious liberty ; John 
Greenwood, Henry Barrowe, and John Penry in 1593 
were the last martyrs to suffer death, but many were 
imprisoned and made to suffer in many ways. They, 



20 THE PILGRIM SPIRIT. 

however, voiced "truths that wake to perish never," 
and, with that moral idealism, which is the most per- 
sistent fact in the history of man, they never flinched. 

"Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the 
throne, — 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim 

unknown, 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above 
his own." 

For a time persecution relaxed somewhat, and 
when James I. ascended the throne in 1603, he invited 
the Puritans to confer with him and the bishops con- 
cerning changes in church usuages. During the dis- 
cussion he lost his temper, stormed and fumed. The 
mention of the "Presbytery" stung him into fury by 
recalling to his mind how he had been restricted by it 
while king of Scotland. Then, breaking into speech, 
he said : "A Scottish Presbytery agreeth as well with a 
monarchy as God and the Devil. Then Jack and Tom 
and Will and Dick shall meet, and at their pleasures 
censure me and my council, and all our proceedings. 
Once you the bishops were out, and they in, I know 
what would become of my Supremacy, for no bishop, 
no king. Stay, I pray you, for one seven years before 
you demand that from me, and if then you find me 
pursy and fat, and my windpipes stuffed, I will per- 
haps hearken to you. Until you find that I grow lazy, 
let that alone." The King in ending said fiercely: "I 
will make them conform, or I will harry them out of 
the land, or else do worse." 

The result of King James' conference was the be- 
ginning of persecution anew, and resistance on the part 



THE PILGRIM SPIRIT. 21 

of the persecuted and thus the beginning of the strug- 
gle between absolutism in church and state and liberty 
of thought and action. The little band of Pilgrims es- 
caping various persecutions and hindrances went in 
1608 to Holland, the only country at that time in which 
political freedom and religious liberty were regnant. 
"Contemporary writers in other countries looked at 
such freedom with scorn. 'All strange religions flock 
thither/ says one; 'It's a common harbor of all her- 
esies, and a cage of unclean birds/ says another; 'the 
great mingle mangle of religions,' says a third."* The 
Pilgrims were members of the church in Scrooby, Eng- 
land, gathered in 1606; they went to Holland under 
the leadership of their pastor, John Robinson, and set- 
tled finally at Ley den in 1609. There for eleven years 
they lived together "in love and peace and holiness" 
and among a people who believed not only in freedom 
for themselves, but were willing to share it with others. 
It was they who, when the Spanish armies came to 
subjugate them, said: "We will cut the dykes, give the 
land back to the ocean, but Holland must and shall be 
free." Little Holland, with her glorious history, re- 
ligious toleration, and love of liberty was a good coun- 
try to live in ; but the Pilgrims did not wish to become 
Dutch and thus lose their English heritage, so in 1620 
they came to America. Other men have done great 
things, 

"But bolder they who first offcast 
Their moorings from the habitable past, 
And ventured chartless on the sea 
Of storm-engendering liberty." 

♦Beginnings of New England by John Piske, p. 74. 



22 THE PILGRIM SPIRIT. 

Such were the men of the Mayflower who crossed 
the trackless sea to find on the rock-bound shores of 
New England a haven where they could worship God 
according to the dictates of conscience. "They were," 
says Lowell, "the most perfect incarnation of an ideal 
the world has ever seen." 

Previous to their landing at Plymouth the Pilgrims 
drew up in the cabin of the Mayflower their celebrated 
Agreement for their better government and preserva- 
tion. The cabin was small but it saw the birth of a 
great political document next in importance to Magna 
Charta, for it embodied the idea of self-government. 
The document was signed by all and among the names 
are those of common sailors and servants. "This was 
the birth of popular constitutional liberty," says Ban- 
croft, "for in the cabin of the Mayflower humanity re- 
covered its rights, and instituted government on the 
basis of 'equal laws' for the general good." The Agree- 
ment was undoubtedly an extension of their religious 
principles to political life, the church covenant suggest- 
ing the civil one. The Pilgrims instituted democracy 
and exerted a strong influence in the development of 
American constitutional government. The equality of 
all men before God leads to civil and religious liberty. 

The Pilgrims had left Holland for the New World 
as an advance guard and, if the venture was a suc- 
cess, the other members of the church at Leyden were 
to follow. The animating spirit during the years was 
that of the Pilgrim and in no one of their number does 
it appear more strongly than in John Robinson. His 
farewell address at Del f shaven to the departing mem- 
bers of his flock brings out the inner soul of the man. 



THE PILGRIM SPIRIT, 23 

A quaint account of the same is thus given by Winslow : 
"We were now ere long to part asunder, and the Lord 
knoweth whether ever he should live to see our faces 
again ; but whether the Lord hath appointed it or not, 
he charged us before God and his blessed Angels, to 
follow him no further than he followed Christ. And 
if God should reveal anything to us by any other in- 
strument of his, be as ready to receive it, as ever we 
were to receive any truth by his ministry. For he was 
very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet 
to break forth out of his Holy Word." Robinson was 
a prophet and did not believe that God had revealed 
his whole will to either Luther or Calvin. The Pilgrim 
pastor was the real founder of Congregationalism. 

Affairs in England continued to grow worse and 
the Pilgrims were joined by many Puritans who finally 
in 1628 came to Massachusetts Bay. They preferred 
to be God's free people in the wilderness, rather than 
slaves to tyranny in England. The Puritans wished to 
purify the Church of England and did not wish to be- 
come Separatists as had the Pilgrims. The words 
attributed to Francis Higginson, as the shores of Eng- 
land faded from sight, may be supposed to voice their 
views : "We will not say, as the Separatists are wont 
to say at their leaving of England, 'Farewell, Babylon ! 
Farewell, Rome!' but we will say, 'Farewell, dear 
England! Farewell, the Church of God in England 
and all the Christian friends there.' We do not go to 
New England as Separatists from the Church of Eng- 
land, though we cannot but separate from the corrup- 
tion in it; but we go to practice the positive part of 
church reformation and to propagate the gospel in 



24 THE PILGRIM SPIRIT. 

America." The logic of events, however, was too 
strong for them and they became Congregationalists 
like the Pilgrims. The Pilgrim Spirit is stronger than 
any ism and ever demands new forms and ways. 

The Pilgrim Fathers were neither Puritans nor per- 
secutors and believed thoroughly in religious and civil 
liberty. The Puritans persecuted the Quakers, ex- 
pelled Roger Williams, and hung witches, but the Pil- 
grims at Plymouth never persecuted any one, and did 
not impose even a religious test for the right of suf- 
frage. "Tolerance," Phillips Brooks once said, "is the 
willing consent that other men should hold and ex- 
press opinions with which we disagree, until they are 
convinced by reason that those opinions are untrue." 
This the Puritans would not allow; liberty was for 
only those who thought as they did. As the theological 
professor said, "Orthodoxy, that's my doxy; hetero- 
doxy, that's the other fellow's doxy." A priestly caste 
whenever and wherever found is always intolerant, for 
such men hold the idea that all truth is comprised in 
their own system of belief. The iron of Puritanism 
always needs the refining temper of the Pilgrim Spirit 
for the Puritan becomes truly great only when he be- 
comes a Pilgrim. The Pilgrims, as well as the Puri- 
tans, were a picked body of men and, with their de- 
scendants, were "the leaven of the 'New World' " ac- 
cording to the happy phrase of Laboulaye. The names 
of such Pilgrims as John Robinson, William Bradford, 
Edward Winslow, John Carver, William Brewster, 
Miles Standish, and John Alden come readily to mind 
suggesting ideas of liberty and progress. 

The Pilgrim Spirit makes not only for religious but 



THE PILGRIM SPIRIT. 25 

civil liberty as well, and while the Pilgrims and Puri- 
tans were working towards a nobler ideal of life in the 
New World the fight was on in Old England. Charles 
I. had succeeded his father and had inherited also his 
ideas of absolutism in state and church. The struggle 
on the part of the people was led by such noble souls 
as the three Johns, Elliot, Hampden, and Pym, and later 
by Cromwell and Sir Harry Vane. The Petition of 
Right was wrung from the obstinate king and, with 
its condemnation of taxation without the consent of 
Parliament, arbitrary imprisonment, billeting of sol- 
diers on the people, and martial law, was an epoch- 
making document. But Charles dissolved Parliament, 
threw the opposition leaders into prison, put to work 
the Star Chamber and Court of High Commission with 
their extraordinary legal powers, and instituted the 
policy of "thorough" in church and state. The case of 
the ship-money brought out the protest of the daunt- 
less Hampden, and finally after years of misrule the 
Pilgrim Spirit arrayed itself in arms against tyranny, 
and brought the head of the despotic Charles to the 
block. Cromwell, the great Puritan captain, became 
the greatest ruler England ever had. The victories 
of Naseby and Dunbar were crowned by the victories 
of peace at home and abroad. The Jews were protect- 
ed and the persecuted Waldensians succored. It was 
Cromwell, the Pilgrim, who said, "Sir, the state in 
choosing men to serve it takes no account of their 
opinions." The government was made just, capable, 
and efficient, and in foreign affairs England was raised 
to the highest pitch of glory. His legislation antici- 
pated the wisest reforms of the last two centuries. The 



26 THE PILGRIM SPIRIT. 

death of Cromwell brought back the Stuarts, but the 
Pilgrim Spirit was the leaven which eventuated in the 
bloodless revolution of 1688 and the accession of Wil- 
liam and Mary and it has continued in English history 
to this day, bringing about many needed reforms. 

The Pilgrim Spirit neither slumbers nor sleeps and 
in the New World led to American democracy, liber- 
ty, and equality. Cromwell, the Puritan, was the spir- 
itual father of Washington, the Cavalier, for their 
swords were bathed in heaven and the dream of one 
became an enduring fact through the other — equal 
rights and a just government. The same spirit ani- 
mated the soul of Patrick Henry, the impassioned 
orator of liberty, led Sam Adams, the man of the 
town-meeting, and stood by the side of Jefferson when 
he wrote the immortal Declaration of Independence, 
helped draft the Constitution, and later through Wil- 
liam Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips demanded 
the abolition of slavery, stood for "the higher law" 
with Seward and at last through Abraham Lincoln 
wrote the Emancipation Proclamation and declared 
that "a government of the people, by the people and 
for the people should not perish from the earth". 

The Pilgrim Spirit does away with sacerdotalism 
and obscurantism and looks at the sun of truth with 
a clear and fearless eye; it declares with Horace Bush- 
nell that the child has the capacity for Christian nur- 
ture, with Henry Ward Beecher that God is the father 
of all mankind and that his nature is love, with Phil- 
lips Brooks that man needs more and abundant life, 
expression and not repression ; it also says clearly that 
life is superior to creed or dogma or institutions; it 



THE PILGRIM SPIRIT. 27 

identifies itself with the righteous, unpopular cause, 
and looks for a brighter and better day for all 
humanity. 

Taking the Platonic doctrine of ideas as a con- 
venient symbol the Pilgrim Spirit assumes that the 
eternal idea as a pattern of human things is always 
larger and better than its embodiment in any human 
institution and forever calls men to the appreciation 
of truth of which the eternal is the prototype. The 
Pilgrim Spirit, as its name implies, is a spirit, an eth- 
ical force or power making for righteousness ; it is 
never a merely reasoned system of belief. At Ply- 
mouth there is a monument to the memory of the heroic 
Pilgrims who there founded a settlement based on lib- 
erty and justice. It is surmounted by a colossal statue 
of Faith, the apotheosis of the Pilgrim Spirit — Faith 
in God and faith in man. Standing there facing the 
east, as if to catch the first bright gleam of morning 
sunshine, it teaches the lesson that idealism conquers 
the world, that spirit is stronger than matter, that truth 
is eternal and must prevail. 

"New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good 
uncouth ; 

They must upward still, and onward, who would keep 
abreast of Truth; 

Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must 
Pilgrims be, 

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the des- 
perate winter sea, 

Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood- 
rusted key." 



II. 



Personality. 



"And a man shall be as an hiding place from the 
wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of wa- 
ter in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a 
weary land. 3 ' — Isaiah xxxii. 2. 

"Remember them that had the rule over you, which 
spake unto you the word of God; and considering the 
issue of their life, imitate their faith." — Hebrews xiii. 7. 

"A superior and commanding intellect, a truly 
great man, when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is 
not a temporary flame, burning brightly for a while, 
and then giving place to returning darkness. It is 
rather a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant light, 
with power to enkindle the common mass of human 
mind; so that when it glimmers in its own decay, and 
finally goes out in death, no night follows, but it 
leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the potent 
contact of its own spirit." — Daniel Webster. 



PERSONALITY 



Truth gains tremendously by becoming incarnated 
in a person. Abstract truth has little power. There 
are great libraries containing many books which are 
of little value to the world, because what truth they 
have has never been connected with a life. Personality 
rules the world. Marble, gold, and granite may perish, 
but personality lives on and is immortal. The path- 
way of the centuries is strewn with the ruins of em- 
pires, monuments, and buildings, yet man ever youth- 
ful is still regnant. Not the telegraph, the Atlantic 
cable, the Brooklyn bridge, the electric light, or the 
many great buildings or monuments in the world, 
but the personalities who invented, planned, and con- 
structed them are the real marvels. Personality is the 
greatest thing in the world. 

What then is personality? It may be defined as 
the essential character of a person as distinguished 
from a thing. Individuality is the particular as op- 
posed to the general, and is another aspect of the idea 
of which personality is the larger and inclusive term. 
Existence as a self-conscious being is another expres- 
sion for personality. Man is a living creature, a person, 
and personality means unity, the entire man. Personal- 
ity, in a limited sense, is the outward marks by which 
one man is distinguished from another ; it is the persona 



32 PERSONALITY. 

or mask, the outward peculiarities of form and fea- 
tures; but, on the other hand, it is the possession of 
spiritual qualities such as intelligence, justice, courage, 
temperance, truth, sympathy, love. The marks of 
personality are consciousness or the possession of life, 
character, or the possession of moral and spiritual 
qualities, will or the power of determination. The 
latter makes life and the possession of moral and spir- 
itual qualities effective, and thus produces character 
which differentiates man from the animal world on the 
one hand and the inanimate world on the other. As 
Locke says, "A person is a thinking, intelligent being, 
that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself 
as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times 
and places." 

Science tells the worth of personality by declaring 
that self-conscious personality is a development of all 
life, that life itself is a tendency towards individua- 
tion; that progress consists in the gradual develop- 
ment of personality; that personality is the end and 
goal toward which nature, in all its changes and strug- 
gles, has always been tending. The supreme product 
of the Creator's work is man endowed with person- 
ality. As the great poet makes Hamlet say: "What a 
piece of work is man! How noble in reason; how in- 
finite in faculty, in form and moving how express and 
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension 
how like a god, the beauty of the world, the paragon 
of animals." Compared with the great forces of 
nature, such as the wind, the fire, and the earthquake, 
man is puny and insignificant, but as Pascal well says, 
"Man is but a reed, but he is a thinking reed/' The 



PERSONALITY. 33 

possession of thought, mind, personality, lifts man 
above the brutes and led the Psalmist to exclaim, 

"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, 
The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? 
And the son of man, that thou visitest him? 
For thou hast made him but little lower than God, 
And crownest him with glory and honor. 
Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of 

thy hands; 
Thou hast put all things under his feet." 

The field of history is an illustration of the influ- 
ence of great personalities. The great man theory may 
neglect the influence of forces and surroundings which 
determine to a certain extent the trend of a man's 
work, but after all has been said determinism is not 
a true philosophy of history. Man changes his sur- 
roundings and directs opposing forces towards worthy 
ends. A forward movement needs leaders to make cur- 
rent the new ideas among the masses. "Personality," 
says Bunsen, "is the lever of history." Biography is 
another name for history. The golden period of Greek 
history centers about Pericles, that of Rome about 
Augustus. Moses was the law-giver, prophet, and 
leader of Israel. The edicts of Pope Gregory VII. rule 
the Roman Church to this day. The mighty spirit of 
Oliver Cromwell, the hero and incarnation of English 
Puritanism, animated his soldiers fighting for liberty, 
and thus gained the victories which are the founda- 
tion stones of modern democracy. The brave Hol- 
landers, reduced almost to subjection by the Spaniards, 



34 PERSONALITY. 

would not give up, but inspired by the noble person- 
ality of William the Silent exclaimed: "We will cut 
the dykes, give the land back to the ocean, but Hol- 
land must and shall be free." Russia of today is the 
extended thought of Peter the Great, while united 
Germany came into being under the guiding hand of 
Bismarck. Protestantism is the extended shadow of 
Martin Luther. The name of Garibaldi is synonymous 
with Italian political unity. Washington and Lin- 
coln, the one the father and the other the saviour of 
our country, impressed their personalities in letters of 
gold on the pages of American history. 

The reader may say that historical writers today 
pay more attention to the development and influence of 
institutions than did their predecessors and that the in- 
fluence of institutions over the thoughts of men must 
be taken into account. It is true that cause and effect 
are seen to be at work in society, and a blind recital of 
names is no longer dignified by the name of history, for 
the people and not their kings are the true factors of 
history. But at the same time, institutions, laws, and 
customs are made by men, and personality in the last 
analysis is the important factor. Bismarck and Moltke 
were supported by the patriotism and resources of 
forty millions of Germans, but their leadership made 
Germany an actuality and not a dream. 

The realm of the moral life affords numerous ex- 
amples of the influence of personality. The Reforma- 
tion was promoted by the scholarly work of Erasmus 
and others, but not until the idea of justification by 
faith took hold of the fiery spirit of Martin Luther did 
the ideal of a purified church become a fact. The road- 



PERSONALITY. 35 

breaker for new ideas showed his true personality 
when he said to the Diet at Worms, "Here I take my 
stand, God helping me, I cannot do otherwise, Amen." 
The American anti-slavery movement of the last cen- 
tury, which gave freedom to a race, was brought forth 
by a few great hearts; it was a grand moral move- 
ment inspired by noble souls ; Garrison was its incar- 
nate moral logic; Whittier, its poet; Mrs. Stowe, its 
novelist; Sumner, its statesman; Frederick Douglass, 
its race orator ; but its most eloquent advocate and 
prophet was Wendell Phillips. The temperance move- 
ment has found fit expression in the personalities of 
John B. Gough and Frances Willard, while the single 
tax and such ideas of social betterment are identified 
with the name of Henry George. Moral movements 
become effective only when they are capitalized by per- 
sonality. 

The domain of literature is especially dominated 
by personality. All books may be roughly divided 
into books of knowledge and books of power, 
the former are scientific treatises and the great 
mass of books published every year, which soon be- 
come out of date and obsolete, and need either 
to be rewritten or destroyed. The books of 
power are those which have the saving salt of per- 
sonality, and so last forever. "A good book," says 
Milton, "is the life blood of a master spirit stored up 
on purpose for a life beyond life." Ideas change, men 
come and go, but the writings of Homer, Virgil, 
Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, and Tennyson find 
a response in the minds and hearts of men. The Bible 
is especially a book of power, for its truth comes 



36 PERSONALITY. 

through personality, and therefore speaks and appeals 
to personality. Criticism does not change its essential 
truth, which came through personality, and its power 
is shown by its influence. 

The home is a place for the development of person- 
ality. The relations of husband and wife, father and 
mother, brother and sister, lift men into the region of 
love and self-sacrifice. The prolongation of infancy 
in man, as compared with other animals, makes the 
home what is is, and allows for a greater development 
of personality than would be possible otherwise , for 
the helpless infant demands care, and its education and 
development extends through a long term of years. 
Every child repeats the biological history of the race 
in its growth and development, and the length of time 
from birth to maturity is a great factor in making man 
what he is. The home is a place for the making of 
character, the development of manhood and woman- 
hood, and the strength and value of family ties come, 
not from precept but from example, the moral influ- 
ence of personality ; that familiar painting by the artist 
Hovenden called the "Breaking of Home Ties" is an 
example of the pervasive influence of personality and 
the power of the home. George Eliot in her story of 
Silas Marner shows the power of the love of a child 
to shape and mould a man's life. 

Science, philosophy, literature, and the varied ac- 
tivities of man tell of the value of personality, but the 
supreme worth of personality is seen only through 
religion. 

"For unless above himself he can 
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man." 



PERSONALITY. 37 

God is a person in the sense of possessing such at- 
tributes of personality as will, intelligence, justice, 
truth, love, and is revealed through nature and man. 
Nature is an ordered whole, and speaks through its 
visible forms of a controlling force or power. Man is 
made in the moral image of his Creator, and shows his 
kinship through personality. "The kingdom of God 
is within you," said the greatest of all teachers, and the 
great glory of Christianity is its affirmation concerning 
the supreme value of personality. Buddhism is a ne- 
gation of personality, while Christianity is its apothe- 
osis. Christianity is the revelation of God in terms of 
personality, and is based on the personality of Jesus 
Christ, the supreme personality of all history. The 
founder of Christianity was a religious teacher who 
lived what he taught; he appealed to life and taught 
truth in terms of personality. Back to Christ is the 
cry of the theology of today, and the endeavor is to re- 
late belief to life and personality. Not abstract but 
living truth is the end and goal of Christian thought. 
Man is a religious animal, with eternity set in his 
heart, and he cannot live by bread alone. 

The inherent worth of man comes through person- 
ality, which is the moral image of God in man. Life 
is a school and man's varied activities are the discipline 
for the development of character. Self-conscious per- 
sonality is the development of all life, the goal toward 
which nature's work has always been tending, the end 
and aim of creative energy, and because of this, per- 
sonality is immortal ; for otherwise nature's work 
would amount to little, life would be a riddle without 
any meaning, and character would be denied time for 



38 PERSONALITY. 

coming to a full and beautiful fruition. The supreme 
personality is God, the creator and sustainer of all life. 

"Thou wilt not leave us in the dust, 
Thou madest man, he knows not why; 
He thinks he was not made to die, 
And thou hast made him; thou art just." 

Man then is the crown of creation and personality 
is the greatest thing in the world. "I think, there- 
fore, I am," said the great French philosopher Des- 
cartes. Men, however, grow and develop, and are not 
so much persons as candidates for personality. Life is 
a field for the growth of personality, the development 
of men into full orbed persons. The influence of great 
men, like the swell in the wake of a steamer, is seen 
and felt after they are gone, and though dead they 
yet speak. Great personalities, dominant intellects, 
moral heroes, and spiritual leaders are sent by God to 
lead the race in its onward march. 

"So much one man can do 
That does both act and know." 




Ill 



A Modern Gamaliel. 



7 have loved truth." — L. L. Paine. 

'Love .... rejoiceth with the truth." — Paul. 



The true criticism of Dogma is its history." 

— D. F. Strauss. 



"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
you free." — Jesus. 



"In the degree that we become true Christians, we 
shall discover more brethren." — A. Sabatier. 



"I am a 'Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought 
up in this city, at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed ac- 
cording to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, 
being zealous for God, even as ye all are this day." 

—Paul. 



A MODERN GAMALIEL 



As Paul sat at the feet of Gamaliel and was in- 
structed in the law of his fathers, so more than a gen- 
eration of young men studying for the Christian min- 
istry sat at the feet of Levi Leonard Paine, Waldo 
Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Bangor Theo- 
logical Seminary, Bangor, Maine, for thirty-two years, 
and were impressed and influenced by his love of teach- 
ing, enthusiasm for knowledge, devotion to truth and 
genuine Christian character. Garfield's much quoted 
saying is particularly applicable, "A log in the forest 
with a boy sitting on one end and Mark Hopkins on 
the other would be university enough," for in Pro- 
fessor Paine's class-room the student sat opposite a 
great teacher. 

Professor Paine was a New Englander in every 
fibre of his being and was born in Holbrook, Mass., 
October 10, 1832. He studied at Phillips Andover 
Academy and graduated at Yale College in the class 
of 1856 — a class numbering among its members Sen- 
ator Depew, Justices Brown and Brewer of the United 
States Supreme Court, and other prominent men, with 
all of whom he was intimately associated. He gradu- 
ated from the Yale Theological School in 1861 and was 
settled as pastor of the Congregational Church of 
Farmington, Conn., for nine years. In 1870 he went 



42 A MODERN GAMALIEL. 

to Bangor Theological Seminary as professor of church 
history and taught continuously for thirty-two years. 
He was dean of the faculty of the seminary for many 
years on account of his seniority of service. From 
1888 to 1894 he was president of the Maine Mission- 
ary Society. 

History to Professor Paine is God's great providen- 
tial teacher of men and in that spirit he taught his suc- 
cessive classes. Pie said, "Through history man is 
helped to read himself and his religious relations and 
duties in the lives and conduct of his fellow men. The 
history of the human race becomes as if an enlarged 
moral consciousness in which, as in a glass, every 
faculty and aspect of man's moral life is displayed in 
every possible form of human working and develop- 
ment. Hence history has a vital religious function. — 
One that has hitherto been sadly neglected. Nature 
and history together, embracing everything outside of 
man's own subjective moral consciousness, are the two 
great avenues of the revelation of God himself.'' 
Again, "History, which gathers up the total individual 
experience of the human race, speaks in clear tones for 
the theistic doctrine, and it is history that forms the 
bone and sinew of the new theology. — History indeed, 
is our true idealist. Its idealism, however, is not that 
of a Platonic or Plegelian metaphysic, but that of 
a historical Baconian induction." — "Surely the long- 
er one studies history, and the more deeply one 
enters into an understanding of its hidden laws 
and forces and movements, the more clearly does one 
apprehend its truly divine function as a revealer of 
God's providential plans and purposes concerning this 



A MODERN GAMALIEL. 43 

world, and also as a continuous panorama of human 
events, unveiling as the years go by, the progressive 
revelations of his truth and love and grace." History 
brings man into closer fellowship with God, promotes 
optimism, and gives inspiration for truer and nobler 
living. 

Professor Paine believed that the slightest bit of 
historical research is of more value than many years of 
metaphysical meditation and ratiocination. The meta- 
physician builds on a vacuum, and is hoisted by his 
own petard. Keep close to the facts is the motto ever 
before the true historian, for as Strauss well says, "The 
true criticism of a dogma is its history." Truth is 
never stationary ; creeds and institutions grow and de- 
velop ; the thoughts of men are widened with the years, 
and so "the only science of a being in a constant state 
of development is its history." 

The German historians and theologians have made 
great contributions to human knowledge during the 
past century, but Professor Paine told his students that 
they would bear watching. The advancement of the 
German professor depends on his making some new 
contributions to the sum of human knowledge and the 
demand creates the supply seen in the promulgation by 
many German scholars of what eventually turn out to 
be merely fine spun figments of the mind without any 
historical foundation. He held that the present French 
school of historians is superior to the German one be- 
cause their treatment of a subject is apt to be on a 
broad scale, their theories, if any, are the result of a 
wide range of induction, and, finally, however one may 
differ from a French writer, one does not have to ask 



44 A MODERN GAMALIEL. 

his meaning after even the first reading of his work. 

The results of Prof. Paine's many years of study 
appear in his Evolution of Trinitarianism, a critical 
study of the doctrine and its outcome in the New 
Christology. The successive chapters take up Atha- 
nasianism, the Pseudo-Athanasian Augustinianism, 
New England Trinitarianism, the Trinitarian Outlook 
and Result, the New Historical Evolution, the De- 
mands of the Historical, Religious, and Intellectual 
Spirit, and the eventuation of these in the New The- 
ology. The study is an historical one and Prof. Paine 
says in his preface, "It is scarcely necessary to say that 
my object has been throughout to give the results of 
an unbiased historical and critical study of the subject. 
My aim has been first to ascertain the exact historical 
truth concerning this most important chapter of Chris- 
tian theological thought, and next to state all the facts 
thus gained with the utmost candor, sincerity, and free- 
dom." The book, however one may differ from its 
conclusions, is a thoroughly readable one, the style is 
clear and forcible, and it has yet to be answered or 
controverted on its own historical ground. 

The Ethnic Trinities is a companion volume to the 
Evolution of Trinitarianism and extends the survey to 
the whole field of religious thought concerning the 
trinity. The Hindoo, the Zoroastrian, and the Greek re- 
ligions are treated of in relation to trinitarian ideas. 
An interesting section is devoted to New Platonism 
and the ideas of Plotinus. Says Prof. Paine, "Scholars 
are coming to realize — what until recently has been 
little appreciated — that Plotinus was the most original 
and acute philosophical thinker since Plato and Aris- 



A MODERN GAMALIEL. 45 

totle, and that his influence today has eclipsed that of 
his great masters." An unsatisfactory review of the 
book in the Christian Register questions this statement, 
but does not accompany the same with any evidence or 
argument. The question naturally arises whether the 
reviewer had made as thorough a study of Plotinus 
and his writings as Professor Paine. The book in 
treating of the idea of mediation makes the prediction 
that, if that idea is carried out to its logical conclusion, 
Mary, the mother of Jesus, will ultimately be included 
in the Trinity by Roman Catholics and even some 
Protestants. 

Professor Paine applied the inductive method of 
study to all fields of knowledge. Theology is no ex- 
ception and needs a right view of man as well as of 
God, and should move from the known to the unknown, 
from the seen to the unseen. Man, nature, God is the 
true order. Not dogmatic theology but inductive the- 
ology is to be the theology of the future. 

The power of growth was a distinguishing char- 
acteristic of his nature. He prepared every lesson as 
carefully as any student in his classes, although he had 
been over the ground many times during his many 
years of teaching church history. His lectures were 
not old and musty, but always new and fresh and pre- 
pared especially for the hour and occasion. He gave 
of his very best to his students and the animated eye, 
the significant gesture, and dramatic delivery added 
force to the truth given forth out of the creative force 
of his mind. He never arrived at the end of truth and 
believed man's comprehension of truth must be ever 
growing and expanding. Teaching was his work and 



46 A MODERN GAMALIEL. 

he threw himself heart and mind into it, and did not, 
like many instructors in our colleges, make it a mere 
adjunct to some other interest. This thirst and search 
for truth kept him ever young and demonstrated the 
power of an endless life. 

The Rev. Hugh MacCallum, pastor of the First 
Congregational Church of Derby, Conn., speaks thus of 
the work of Prof. Paine with his students : "Only he 
who has been privileged to sit at the feet of Professor 
Paine of Bangor can truly appreciate his genius as a 
teacher. The air of the class-room was his native ele- 
ment, and it was always as fresh and pure as heaven 
could make it. Fresh air, a moderate temperature, an 
armful of books, a keen, penetrating mind, a never-dy- 
ing enthusiasm, a magnetic personality, and a receptive 
body of men — all these were found in Professor Paine's 
class-room. He lived for his 'boys.' Neither plat- 
form nor pulpit could draw him away from them, and 
they received the very best that he could give. Some 
have feared the influence of his views and many have 
looked upon his teachings as theological utterances 
rather than historical interpretations. 'Orthodoxy,' he 
often said, 'is my doxy.' One thing, however, is cer- 
tain, his heterodoxy was not of the heart. 'Gentlemen, 
it is a fine thing to study theology and church history, 
but when you get out into the world and come into 
touch with men you must preach something else.' 
These were his words. Even the sparkle of his eye, 
which told of victory, and the gesture so familiar to 
all who were his students have a significance which, for 
us at least, shall never die. Many a man in the min- 
istry today has reason to thank God for the privilege 



A MODERN GAMALIEL. 47 

of coming into touch with one who as a teacher had 
but few equals." 

In an article in the C ongre gationalist on "Professor 
Paine as a Teacher", President Hyde of Bowdoin Col- 
lege bears this testimony: "His students got from him 
not merely the winnowed grain of doctrine or ritual, 
but the sap and fiber of the sturdy stalk as it grew in 
the rich soil of human passion, toughened itself in the 
winds of controversy and ripened under the sunshine 
of Providence. They went forth not so much with 
final results in their heads as with fire in their hearts 
to take up the struggle for truth and righteousness 
where historic evolution leaves it, and continue the 
fight in the spirit in which the fathers fought, rather 
than rest idly in the victories they won. In his own 
judgment his books were to be his chief contribution. 
But the return from printed books is quick and visible 
and easily overestimated. The influence over suc- 
cessive generations of students is more like nature's 
slow and silent processes, and for that very reason 
more sure to bring forth in the end thirty, sixty and a 
hundred fold. Whatever may be the fortune of his 
fame, his influence, which is the substance of which 
fame is but the shadow, will rest on his incomparable 
skill in the distinctive work of the teacher — the making 
of some portion of God's great truth live anew in an in- 
dividual mind and bring forth fruit in a personal life." 

The teaching of Professor Paine led his students 
not so much to a belief as to a method of arriving at 
truth, not a rule but a principle. He created a thirst 
for truth, the living truth. He told his students not to 
follow any man, not even himself, unless he built upon 



48 A MODERN GAMALIEL. 

a rock foundation. Every man's thought must be tested 
even as by fire. He instilled a profound respect for 
the actual and said : "I can go along with a man as 
long as he keeps one foot on the earth, but not when 
he takes both feet off." 

Prof. Paine was a profoundly religious man whose 
faith was in God and not in dogma. He told his stu- 
dents, "I trust more, because I love more. If I grow 
in grace, I ought to love more ; it is Christ's dictum — 
Love one another." — Faith to him was always a moral 
act, a movement of the free will. Christ's parable of the 
prodigal son was the essential key to Christianity for 
him. He believed "that religion was based on two fun- 
damental principles : a faith in God as the loving Father 
of mankind, and a faith in all men as the common chil- 
dren of God and heirs of his grace and mercy." Love 
to God and love to man are the two great command- 
ments. Man is a free moral agent and God draws him 
not by force but by love. Christ's gospel is that of love 
and he believed with Sabatier that "in the degree that 
we become true Christians, we shall discover more 
brethren." 

The students of Professor Paine esteemed him not 
only for his work's sake, but loved him as a friend. He 
was always interested in his "boys" and rejoiced in 
their intellectual and spiritual growth and transforma- 
tion during their three years at the Seminary. Then 
his sagacious advice and keen analysis of a difficulty 
placed many a young man on his feet. He hated a 
sham and was keen in detecting one and appealed to 
only the best in human nature and so brought out the 
best in his students. He was kind and genial by 



A MODERN GAMALIEL. 49 

nature, yet dignified, and woe to presumption 
which was not accompanied by insight. The latch- 
string of his home was always out and there the stu- 
dent caller exchanged the desert of the monastic dormi- 
tory for an oasis of domestic life. Every man's home 
is his castle and its privacy should not be invaded, but 
there Professor Paine gained the strength for his daily 
work. He practiced what he preached and his atmos- 
phere was love, joy, and peace. 

"His life was gentle and the elements 
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up 
And say to all the world, 'This was a man!'" 

Death is the debt the body pays to Nature, and so 
on a spring day in 1902 the silver cord was loosed, the 
golden bowl was broken and the spirit of Professor 
Paine left its frail tenement of clay and took the main 
traveled road to that brighter and better country where 
the last problem of the religious principia and of life 
finds a solution and an answer. The things which are 
seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen 
are eternal. The ideal becomes the real and 

"Life, like a dome of many colored glass, 
Stains the white radiance of eternity." 

This world is poorer and the spirit world richer be- 
cause of his departure. His life was an exemplifica- 
tion of Christian character, of good deeds and not 
cant, of truth and not hypocrisy. "He was a man, 
take him for all in all, we shall not look upon his like 
again." He lives in the hearts and minds of his stu- 



50 A MODERN GAMALIEL. 

dents and although he has joined the choir invisible he 
yet speaketh. He loved truth, he followed the gleam, 
and was a true knight in the cause of truth and liberty 
of thought. These words of Browning are an epitome 
of his life: 

"One who never turned his hack, but marched breast for- 
ward; 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 

triumph ; 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
Sleep to wake." 




IV. 



The Hebrew Prophets. 



"Moral theism is the creation of the Hebrew proph- 
ets." — G. A. Gordon. 



"The historian is the prophet looking backward." 

— Schlegel. 

"Prophecy is the expression of an ideal truth, which, 
just because it contains an eternal law of the order of 
the world, also finds ever new fulfilment in all times" 

— Pfleiderer. 



"This is the covenant that I zvill make with the 
house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will 
put my law in their inward parts, and in their hearts 
will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall 
be my people." — Jeremiah xxxi. 33. 

"And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made 
thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be 
thy prophet. Thou shall speak all that I command 
thee: and Aaron thy brother (prophet) shall speak unto 
Pharaoh, that he let the children of Israel go out of his 
land." — Exodus vii. 1-2. 



THE HEBREW PROPHETS. 



The fruit on the tree of today comes from the blos- 
soms of yesterday, which in their turn are rooted in 
the past. The life of today is made up from many 
strands and the endless web of events has been woven 
in the roaring loom of time under the guiding hand of 
God. Every race has made its contribution. The Greeks 
gave the world the idea of beauty in the varied forms 
of art, literature, and sculpture. The Greek language 
being the most flexible and harmonious of all lan- 
guages, was the fit instrument for the expression of the 
thought of Plato, of the logic of Aristotle, and the 
poems of Homer and Pindar. Christianity was given 
to the world by means of the Greek language which at 
the time of Christ was the universal tongue. The New 
Testament was written in Greek. Modern architecture 
gains in beauty through its heritage of the stately Greek 
pillar. Painters and sculptors still go back to the noble 
examples of Greek art and receive true inspiration. 
After the Greek idea of beauty came the Roman idea of 
law. To the Roman, "Order was Heaven's first law," 
and with his legions he brought the world under the 
sway of law. Anarchy was repressed and the world 
first began to learn the blessings of peace. Roman cit- 
izenship in those days was the equivalent of kingship 
in an earlier period. All roads led to Rome ; the boun- 
daries of countries were broken down and race preju- 



54 THE HEBREW PROPHETS. 

dice done away with, by the bringing of all nations 
under one imperial sway. Roman courts dispensed jus- 
tice in all parts of the empire, and every citizen could 
appeal from them unto Caesar. Then the idea of the 
solidarity of the race, the oneness of mankind became 
apparent and thus prepared the way for Christianity 
with its message of the brotherhood of man. Along 
with and also before the Greek idea of beauty and 
Roman idea of law, came the Hebrew idea of duty. 
Israel, hewn out of the rock, was one of the greatest 
forces in the world's history. No true history and no 
true life forgets the fact that in Palestine was the cradle 
of Jesus the Christ. The Semites are essentially re- 
ligious and their contribution to the world has been a 
religious one, for from them has come Judaism, Mo- 
hammedanism, and Christianity. Conduct was to the 
Hebrews the important thing and if we believe with 
Matthew Arnold that conduct is three-fourths of life, 
we do well to heed the message coming to us from 
Israel. That message is one God, one law, one element, 
righteousness, truth, justice, love to God, and love to 
man. The command in the words of Amos was, "Let 
judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as 
a mighty stream." 

The peculiar feature of the Hebrew religion was its 
prophets. Other religions have priests and altars, but 
none prophets in the Old Testament sense. The Old 
Testament is made up largely of the writings of the 
Hebrew prophets. What then is a prophet? Says 
George Adam Smith, "In vulgar use, the name prophet 
has degenerated to the meaning of one who foretells 
the future. Of this meaning it is perhaps the first duty 



THE HEBREW PROPHETS. 55 

of every student of prophecy earnestly and stubborn- 
ly to rid himself. In its native Greek tongue, 'prophet' 
meant, not 'one who speaks before,' but 'one who speaks 
for, or on behalf of, another.' It is in this sense that 
we must think of the prophet of the Old Testament. 
He is a speaker for God. 'The sharer of God's coun- 
sels,' as Amos calls him, he becomes the bearer and 
preacher of God's word. Prediction of the future is 
only a part and often a subordinate and accidental part 
of an office whose full function is to declare the char- 
acter and will of God." The best definition that I have 
been able to find is that in Second Peter which speaks 
of the prophet as a speaker, a preacher of righteous- 
ness. Renan says that "the Jewish Prophets were fanat- 
ics in the cause of social justice, and that the sight of 
a bad man dying old, rich, and at ease, kindled their 
fury." Israel's seers burned with anger over the abuses 
of a badly governed world. The supreme difference 
between Greece and Israel was that while with the 
former religion was an elegant plaything, with the lat- 
ter it led to deeds of heroism, and a grand awakening 
of humanity. 

Moses was the earliest of the prophets, but before 
speaking of him let us briefly review the early history 
of Israel; for the understanding of prophecy depends 
in a large measure upon a knowledge of the outward 
history of the people. The forefathers of Israel, under 
the guidance of Abraham, wandered from Haran in 
Mesopatamia into Palestine where they stayed for some 
time and, after many adventures, went down into 
Egypt, settling on the pasture-lands of the eastern 
Nile-delta. Here they were tolerated at first but final- 



56 THE HEBREW PROPHETS. 

ly were heavily oppressed by the "new king over Egypt, 
which knew not Joseph" till under the guidance of 
Moses, who was of the tribe of Levi, they succeeded in 
throwing off the Egyptian yoke. Moses changed a 
band of slaves into a people and was their leader and 
guide. He was their prophet and messenger from God 
and to them he spoke the message of morality and re- 
ligion. The idea of prophecy is brought out in the 
scene where Aaron becomes the prophet or spokesman 
for Moses. The verse says, "He shall be thy spokes- 
man unto the people : and it shall come to pass that 
he shall be to thee a mouth, and thou shalt be to him 
as God." A prophet, then, is a spokesman or speaker 
for God. Did Moses think that himself only could be 
a prophet? The answer is given in the eleventh chap- 
ter of Numbers. Moses had chosen seventy elders to 
assist him in the administration of government. All 
but two of these came to the tabernacle ; then the Lord 
took of the Spirit that was upon Moses and put it upon 
them and they did prophesy. Eldad and Medad, the 
two absent ones, also felt the Spirit and began to 
prophesy, doubtless praising God. A young man 
eager for propriety and formalism, ran and told Moses 
of the fact. Joshua hearing of it said, "My lord Moses, 
forbid them." But Moses believing that all truth 
wherever found is from God said unto him, "Art thou 
jealous for my sake? Would God that all the Lord's 
people were prophets, that the Lord would put his 
spirit upon them !" 

The call is to all, for 

"Great truths are portions of the soul of man; 
Great souls are portions of eternity." 



THE HEBREW PROPHETS. 57 

The prophet traces all things directly back to God. 
What we call conscientious convictions were a "Thus 
saith the Lord to him." In God he lived and moved 
and had his being. The impressions of conscience were 
God's hand laid heavily upon him. The impulse to 
speak was a burning fire shut up in his bones. The 
call to prophecy or speak is heard like the roaring of a 
lion. Monitions of conscience are the voice of God. 
Moral enthusiasm is the nature of the prophet. 

The prophets have not all been men, for we find 
after Moses in the time of the Judges, Deborah the 
prophetess. 

"The rulers ceased in Israel, they ceased, 
Until I Deborah arose, 
That I arose a mother in Israel. 
They chose new gods; 
There was war in the gates: 
Was there a shield or spear seen 
Among forty thousand in Israel?" 



After asking this question, the heart of Deborah goes 
out to Israel and she praises the Lord because she be- 
lieves that Jehovah is on the side of Israel. In this 
spirit 

x "The kings came and fought; 

Then fought the kings of Canaan, 

In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo; 

They took no gain of money, 

They fought from heaven, 

The stars in their courses fought against Sisera." 



58 THE HEBREW PROPHETS. 

Samuel continues the line of speakers from God. 
Given to the service of God from his earliest years by 
his mother, he continues at Shiloh the seat of worship. 
The name of "seer" is attached to him, that being the 
name at that time of a prophet. Samuel felt for the 
distresses of his country and sees a way out of oppres- 
sion and misery under the leadership of Saul of the 
tribe of Benjamin. The heroic soul of Saul is aroused 
and Samuel gives him the religious consecration that 
supports him on his way. 

In David's time comes the familiar figure of 
Nathan the Prophet. David had committed a grievous 
sin and Nathan told him of his sin putting it in the form 
of a parable. Then was David's anger kindled, and he 
said to Nathan, "As the Lord liveth, the man that hath 
done this is worthy of death : and shall restore four- 
fold, because he had no pity." Then comes the home 
thrust, the application of the truth. "And Nathan said 
to David, Thou art the man.' ' Nathan was indeed a 
preacher of righteousness. 

Elijah is the first prophet on a grand scale. The 
figure of .Elijah the Tishbite is one of the greatest in the 
Old Testament. 

"As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 

The time in which Elijah lived was a time to try men's 
souls and his personality must have been a tremen- 
dous one in order to leave the impression it did. No 



THE HEBREW PROPHETS. 59 

doubt legendary elements enter into the stories connect- 
ed with him, but where there is so much smoke there 
must be a good deal of fire. 

What were the times during which Elijah lived? 
Israel and Judah, which had been united during the 
prosperous reigns of David and Solomon dissolved 
their relationship after the death of Solomon, because 
of the oppressions of Rehoboam his successor. Then 
in 937 B. C. Jeroboam became king of Israel and Reho- 
boam was left with the kingship of Judah alone. The 
division was an element of weakness and led ultimately 
to the downfall of both kingdoms. Ahab was king of 
Israel during the time of Elijah. In 876 the year previ- 
ous to Ahab's coming to the throne, an Assyrian army 
had penetrated for the first time as far as Lebanon and 
the Mediterranean Sea, and had laid Israel under 
tribute. The neighboring kingdoms of Damascus had 
also been victorious. It was a time of trouble. Ahab 
had married Jezebel, a Tyrian princess, who was a 
worshiper of Baal, and in her honor erected a temple 
in Samaria to the Tyrian Baal. Elijah protested against 
this idolatry and recalled the people in these words, 
"How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord 
be God, follow him, but if Baal, then follow him." 
Then in the test which followed the prophets of Baal 
were put to route. Ahab besides being idolatrous, com- 
mitted crime in the taking of Naboth's vineyard. It 
seems that Naboth had a vineyard in Jezreel hard by 
the palace and the king wanted it for a garden of herbs. 
Naboth, however, did not wish to part with it although 
offered a better vineyard or the equivalent in money. 
Who knows but it may have been the family home- 



60 THE HEBREW PROPHETS. 

stead, hallowed by loving associations ! The matter is 
ended for Ahab, but Jezebel hearing of it says to him, 
"Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? I will 
give thee the vineyard of Naboth." False witnesses 
testify against Naboth for blasphemy toward God and 
the king; he is stoned to death and his goods confis- 
cated. Then the king goes to take possession of the 
vineyard, and is met by Elijah, who says in a voice of 
thunder, "Thou who didst sell thyself to work wicked- 
ness ! thus saith Jehovah : T have yesterday seen the 
blood of Naboth and of his children in the vineyard 
and I will requite thee in this plat.' " Covetousness 
brought ruin to Ahab, the same as it does to every man. 
Elijah had a noble and spiritual idea of God, for he be- 
held God not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire 
but in the still, small voice. In what does the import- 
ance of Elijah consist? Says Prof. Cornill, "Elijah is 
the first prophet in the truly Israelitic sense, differing 
from the later prophets only in that his efficacy was 
purely personal and in that he left nothing written. He 
saw that man does not live by bread alone, nor nations 
through sheer power. He considered Israel solely as 
the bearer of a higher idea. If the people became un- 
faithful to this idea, no external power could help 
them; for the nation bore in itself the germ of death. 
Israel was not to become a common nation like the oth- 
ers : it should serve Jehovah alone so as to become a 
righteous and pure people." 

The mantle of Elijah fell upon Elisha who is dis- 
tinguished by the fact that, according to the Biblical 
record, he is the only prophet summoned to that high 
office by another. Through Elisha, the cavalry officer 



THE HEBREW PROPHETS. 61 

Jehu is called to the throne of Israel and in smiting 
the house of Ahab brings retribution for the taking of 
Naboth's vineyard. At this time the principle was fully 
established that no other God but Jehovah should be 
recognized in the land. 

Prophecy for the first time becomes written during 
the eighth century and each prophet is thus able to hand 
his message down to posterity. The additional ad- 
vantage is also gained that each prophet can build on 
the foundations of those who went before him, thus 
carrying the truth to loftier and nobler heights and 
making its effects more cumulative. Amos who ap- 
peared at Bethel about 760 B. C, was the first of the 
writing prophets. They wrote sixteen of the books 
which go to make up the Old Testament. Who are 
they, and what is their message? 

Amos is the Prophet of Righteousness and his 
prophetic word is "Let judgment roll down as waters, 
and righteousness as a mighty stream." 

Hosea is the Prophet of Love. Mercy, and not 
sacrifice or burnt offerings, is what God requires from 
men. In him we begin to get a view of the Gospel. 

Isaiah is the Prophet Statesman guiding the people 
by the divine compass through a rough and stormy 
period. God to him is the ruler of the universe, the 
force behind all force, the maker and unmaker of na- 
tions as well as men. 

Micah is the Prophet of the Poor, for he believes 
that God loves the common people. Why? Because, 
as Abraham Lincoln once said, "He made so many of 
them." Religion to Micah is summed up in the ques- 
tion, "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do 



62 THE HEBREW PROPHETS. 

justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy 
God?" 

Jeremiah has been called the Prophet of the Dis- 
persion. The times were stormy and ended in the cap- 
tivity in Babylon. The life of Jeremiah was one long 
protest against crime and folly. A living principle was 
his message, for the Lord said to him, "I will put my 
law in their inward parts, and in their hearts will I 
write it." God is indeed the God of individuals. 

Ezekiel is the Prophet of the Captivity, some have 
called him the Prophet of the Church. Ezekiel 
was "a watchman over the house of Israel" and united 
the exiles by the spiritual bond of religion. His mes- 
sage was an ecclesiastical one, the organization of re- 
ligion into the church. "He was," says Professor Cor- 
nill, "pre-eminently churchman and organizer : as such, 
the greatest that Israel ever had. 

The Second Isaiah, sometimes called the Great Un- 
known, the author of the latter half of Isaiah beginning 
at the fortieth chapter with the words, "Comfort ye, 
comfort ye my people, saith your God," was one of 
the most spiritual of all the prophets. "The book itself 
must be accounted the most brilliant jewel of prophetic 
literature," says one writer. The message is one of 
hope, deliverance, the theme, self-sacrifice through love, 
the means. The life and death of Jesus the Christ was 
the completion of that message. 

And what shall I more say? For the time will fail 
me if I tell of Zephaniah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Haggai, 
Zechariah, Malachi, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, and Daniel, 
who all did their part in bringing out the truth that 



THE HEBREW PROPHETS. 63 

God is a spirit and must be worshiped in spirit and in 
truth. 

"God sends his teachers unto every age 
To every clime, and every race of men, 
With revelations fitted to their growth 
And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth 
Into the selfish rule of one sole age." 

Revelation is progressive. Men's thoughts are wid- 
ened with the process of the sun. God reveals himself 
through persons. It is the prophet and not the priest 
who has given to the world its highest form of relig- 
ion. The tree which sheltered Moses has grown and 
under its shade is room for all the sons of men. The 
message of the prophets was the everlasting reality of 
spiritual religion, their words were fitted to the time 
and place, but because they were true to God and them- 
selves, their message is an eternal one. 




Character Through Struggle. 



"The fiend that man harries 
Is love of the Best." 

R. W. Emerson. 

"What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing 
but the first step to something better." — Wendell 
Phillips. 

"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after right- 
eousness: for they shall be Med." — Matthew v. 6. 

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall 
find; knock and it shall be opened unto you: for every 
one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh Undeth; 
and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." 

—Matthew vii. 7-8. 

"Clearly, for strong and resolute men and women 
an Eden would be but a fool's paradise. How could 
anything fit to be called character have ever been pro- 
duced there? But for tasting the forbidden fruit, in 
what respect could man have become a being of higher 
order than the beasts of the Held?" — John Fiske. 



CHARACTER THROUGH STRUGGLE. 



And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become 
one of us to know good and evil ; and now lest he put 
forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and 
eat, and live forever: therefore the Lord God sent 
him forth from the garden, of Eden, to till the ground 
from whence he was taken. — Genesis iii. 22-23. 

These words are found in the third chapter of the 
book of Genesis in the form which that book took after 
the return of the Jews from the captivity at Babylon. 
They are the climax of the story in which the wily 
serpent is represented as giving advice to the Mother 
of Mankind to eat of the fruit of the tree in the midst 
of the garden and in so doing, to have open eyes, be- 
coming as gods knowing good and evil. The whole 
story represents a profound truth, for man is ever go- 
ing through temptation to virtue. Innocence is the 
state of childhood, knowledge that of manhood. As 
Paul says, "When I was a child, I felt as a child, I 
thought as a child: now that I am become a man I 
have put away childish things." Childhood passes into 
manhood and ideas change. Eden is left never to be 
regained. Innocence is beautiful, but character is bet- 
ter and more enduring. Then the Lord God is repre- 
sented as saying: "Behold the man is become as one of 
us," that is to say, one of the Elohim or heavenly host, 



68 CHARACTER THROUGH STRUGGLE. 

who know the good and the evil. "So he drove out 
the man" from the Garden of Eden to work out his 
destiny in the age long conflict between the opposing 
forces of good and evil. 

This poem, legend, or allegory typifies the begin- 
ning of progress, the movement towards the "one far 
off divine event, to which the whole creation moves." 
The legend is more an epitome of the history of the in- 
dividual than of the race. One might almost say that 
it is a recognition of the individual, that it marks the 
transition from tribal to individual ethics; that is to 
say, man is brought, for the first time, face to face 
with the eternal reality that character comes through 
struggle and not otherwise ; that man, if he fell, fell 
upstairs ; that ever and always God in his mercy and 
love is continually driving men out of their Edens of 
ease and contentment into the world of activity; that 
Paradise Lost means manhood gained — victory through 
defeat. Divine discontent being ever the lever of 
progress, the law of life. 

The world of nature, the world of nations, and the 
world of individuals afford ample evidence of this 
truth. Looking at the world of nature, we see that the 
Creator has endowed it with abundant stores for the 
uses of man, but the wilderness must be subdued, 
coal and other minerals must be uncovered, the land 
must be tilled in order to secure a harvest, the forces 
of steam and electricity must be harnessed before 
nature becomes the servant and not the master of 
mankind. Out of the struggle with the elemental 
forces by which men are surrounded, the thought, the 
strength, the skill, and the character of mankind are 



CHARACTER THROUGH STRUGGLE. 69 

developed. It is an interesting fact that the colder 
climes are the seats of progress compared with the 
tropical ones, for the countries of the Temperate Zones 
represent the most advanced civilization. Germany, 
a land of clouds, is the home of a people who defeated 
the Romans, enervated by their Eden of ease, — a coun- 
try, also, which has given to the world such thinkers 
as Kant and Hegel, such poets as Goethe and Schiller, 
such religious leaders as Luther and Schliermacher. 
England, sea-girt and with rugged coasts, has been a 
prolific mother of the leaders of men and has stood for 
civil and religious liberty, during many a dark hour of 
the world's history. "We must be free or die, who 
speak the tongue that Shakespeare spake; the faith 
and morals hold, which Milton held." Palestine, no 
larger than one of our smaller American states is a 
bleak, rocky, and sterile country, hewn out of the rock 
as it were, but from her have come the uplifting forces 
of religious and spiritual enlightenment which are the 
heritage of all men today. Little Switzerland, among 
the Alps, is immortal in song and story for her love 
of liberty. Geneva, her chief city, was for many years 
the home of John Calvin and from that centre went 
forth influences whose waters have not subsided to 
this day. Brave little Holland, made out of the very 
bed of the ocean by the struggle of her inhabitants, 
gave the world the first great example of religious 
toleration. Liberty, not only for themselves, but all 
men, was their belief and practice. Their unconquer- 
able love of liberty comes out in the story that when 
driven almost to despair by the armies of Spain, they 
were led by the inspiration of their noble leader, Wil- 



10 CHARACTER THROUGH STRUGGLE. 

Ham of Orange, to cry, "We will cut the dykes, give 
the land back to the ocean, but Holland must and shall 
be free." No Eden of slavish ease appeared to their 
minds to have any worth. Our own New England in 
some respects is rough and forbidding, her soil is hard 
to till and meagre in harvest, the largest crop is rocks 
judging by their abundance. Her glory, and the great- 
est glory of any state, is brought out in the reply to 
the traveler who asked, "What do you raise here?" 
"We raise men," was the answer. 

Struggle is the law of life, for through struggle 
comes development and growth. One scientist goes 
so far as to propound the theory that all vital func- 
tions, as digestion, respiration, the circulation of the 
blood, began in the dimly conscious efforts of the or- 
ganism. All forms of life have developed and what 
they are today depends on struggle in the past. Agi- 
tation which is another name for struggle is necessary 
to keep pure the water of oceans and lakes, whose per- 
fect tranquility would breed disease and death. The 
thunder storm purifies the air, revivifies the face of 
nature, and is followed by the beauty of the rainbow. 
Nature is indeed another name for struggle and in 
combat with the forces of the natural world, man gains 
character as well as victory. 

The world of nations is governed by this law of 
struggle. Compare the political map of the world of 
today with one of a hundred, two hundred, or three 
thousand years ago and note the difference. Gone are 
the ancient nations of Nineveh, Babylon, Media, Per- 
sia, Parthia, Greece and Rome because they lost step 
with the onward march of humanity and sank into 



CHARACTER THROUGH STRUGGLE. 71 

Edens of ease, pride, selfishness, greed, and pleasure. 

The nation which is perfect, like the man who 
knows it all, is an enemy to progress. The good is ever 
the enemy of the best. China was a nation and had a 
civilization of its own, when the people of Europe had 
not yet emerged from barbarism. To the Chinese the 
world is indebted for the first idea of printing and for 
the invention of gunpowder. China, however, has been 
satisfied with her past and almost until the present 
day has been an Eden of complacency, fenced about .by 
walls excluding new ideas. Now all is changed. The 
allied armies have captured Pekin ; Russia and Japan 
are at war in Manchuria, and by the inevitable force 
of events, the Chinese will be driven out of their Eden 
of complacency; the walls encircling them will be 
broken down; the barriers burned away; China, like 
Japan, will begin a new career of progress by struggle 
with modern conditions. 

Divine discontent both with nations and individuals 
is better than slothful ease. Progress comes not from 
contented minds. Some years ago Pope Alexander VI. 
gave "of his mere liberality" to Spain and Portugal 
all the land thenceforth to be discovered. Portugal 
since has become a forgotten nation while Spain with 
her glorious past dwells in an Eden of pride. The 
once wealthy and powerful nation of Europe whose 
name struck terror to the hearts of her enemies has 
sunk into a lethargy of pride over past achievements 
out of which the guns of Dewey at Manila and Samp- 
son at Santiago have failed to rouse her. 

Political life in all countries is kept pure by agita- 
tion, by public opinion. An effective opposition is nee- 



72 CHARACTER THROUGH STRUGGLE. 

essary in a democratic form of government for an 
Eden of unrestrained power brings corruption. Pres- 
idential elections are worth, as a means of popular 
education, all that they cost in time and money. Wen- 
dell Phillips believed that a democratic form of govern- 
ment needs great men to arouse the ideals of truth 
and righteousness latent in all men. Agitation is ever 
the secret of progress, for, if a monarchy is like the 
Alps, cold and serene, a democracy is like the sea rest- 
less but ever free, and the secret of its purity lies in 
its continual agitation. 

War is a method of struggle necessary at times in 
the world of nations, for Edens of repose and peace 
protect wrongs many times. "War with its attendant 
horrors should be avoided at all times," say some, but 
we should remember that there are worse things than 
war — for example, injustice and slavery. Cromwell 
and his troopers through the fortunes of war put an 
end — so far as Englishmen were concerned — to the 
doctrine of the divine right of kings ; the patriots of 
the American Revolution achieved not only their own 
liberty, but that of Englishmen as well; Napoleon, 
though selfish in his policies, spread the thoughts of 
the French Revolution, — Liberty, Equality, and Fra- 
ternity, — throughout Europe ; the Civil War put an end 
forever in America to the buying and selling of human 
beings as chattels, and all the wealth and all the life 
the war cost is offset by the gain to humanity, even if 
not equaled by the two hundred and fifty years of 
wealth amassed by the blackman's labor; the Mace- 
donian cry of little Cuba to come over and help her was 
heard by the American people and the results are be- 



CHARACTER THROUGH STRUGGLE. 73 

coming apparent. The deaths in Havana in 1898 were 
eighty-five to each thousand of the population. The 
death rate in 1901 was reduced to a little more than 
twenty-two to the thousand. Yellow fever is being 
stamped out and will soon be no longer the menace that 
it was to Cuba or this country. War is indeed rough 
surgery with its terrible suffering and death, but in its 
wake comes health and permanent peace. From seeing 
ill comes good and through struggle the human race is 
not only chastised but it moves onward. 

"See! In the rocks of the world 
Marches the host of mankind, 
A feeble, wavering line. 
Where are they tending? — A God 
Marshall'd them, gave them their goal — 
Ah, but the way is so long! 
Years they have been in the wild! 
Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks, 
Rising all round, over-awe; 
Factions divide them, their host 
Threatens to break, to dissolve, — 
Ah, keep, keep them combined! 
Then let us fill up the gaps in our files, 
Strengthen the wavering line, 
Stablish, continue our march, 
On, to the bound of the waste, 
On to the city of God." 

It is, however, to the world of the individual that 
we look for the exemplification of victory through 
defeat, power through struggle. Wrestling Jacob is 
an example for humanity. "There wrestled a man 
with him until the breaking of the day And 



74 CHARACTER THROUGH STRUGGLE. 

he said, 'Let me go, for the day breaketh.' And he 
said, 'I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.' And 
he said unto him, 'What is thy name?' And he said, 
'Jacob.' And he said, 'Thy name shall be called no 
more Jacob, but Israel ; for thou hast striven with God 
and with men, and has prevailed.' And Jacob asked 
him, and said, 'Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.' And 
he said 'Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my 
name?' And he blessed him there." 

Samson, a mighty man of strength, gave up the 
secret of his power for a supposed Eden of peace and 
quietness. Betrayed into the power of the Philistines 
his eyes were put out and he was brought down to 
Gaza where he was bound with fetters of brass and did 
grind in the prison house. By and by his strength re- 
turned to him and when brought before his enemies 
to make sport for them he leaned upon the pillars 
whereupon the house rested. "And he bowed him- 
self," says the story, "with all his might ; and the house 
fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were 
therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were 
more than they which he slew in his life." 

Jeremiah, like many another prophet of righteous- 
ness, was held up to mockery and derision until he was 
persuaded to refrain from speaking the truth ; but there 
was a burning fire shut up in his bones and he grew 
weary with forbearing and could not contain himself. 
There is a divine unrest in all men that bids them climb 
and do their best. 

The Pilgrims "ventured chartless on the sea of 
storm engendering liberty" leaving their old homes to 
find a haven where they could worship God according 



CHARACTER THROUGH STRUGGLE. 75 

to the dictates of conscience. No Eden of ease se- 
cured by conformity to what they deemed wrong had 
any power over them. "They were," says Lowell, 
"the most perfect incarnation of the ideal the world 
has ever seen." 

Washington after eight years of hardship in the 
service of his country during which time he had vis- 
ited his home but once for a few hours bade farewell 
to his companions in arms and retired to Mt. Vernon 
to end his days in peace and quietness. But the years 
immediately following the Revolution have been well 
called the "critical period of American history", for it 
seemed as if all the struggle of the long years of war 
would go for nothing. It was no time for Edens of 
ease for any patriot and Washington did his part in 
bringing about the Constitutional Convention, left Mt. 
Vernon to become its presiding officer, and when its 
work was finished became through its results the first 
president of the country he had done so much to estab- 
lish. 

Franklin at the breaking out of the Revolution was 
an old man, wealthy, and one who had received many 
honors from the crown. He had everything to lose 
and nothing to gain, but he turned his back on his 
contemplated Eden of ease for his old age and devoted 
himself to the service of his country giving time and 
money without stint, crossing the ocean to secure the 
favor of France, and finally at eighty-one sat as a mem- 
ber of the Constitutional Convention. 

Paul fancied he could find repose and security for 
his own beliefs by the persecution of those differing 
from him ; but the heavenly vision to which he was not 



76 CHARACTER THROUGH STRUGGLE. 

disobedient changed him from a persecutor to an 
apostle and led him to exclaim, "Woe is unto me, if I 
preach not the gospel." There were no struggles too 
arduous, no difficulties too great, but in labors abun- 
dant, in prisons abundant, in stripes above measure, 
in deaths oft, in perils of rivers, in perils of sea, in 
danger of robbers, in labor, in hunger and in thirst 
did he testify to the love of Christ which animated his 
soul. Paul speaks of the law of the flesh warring 
against the law of the mind and in this struggle the 
ascendency of spirit over flesh. For as many are led by 
the spirit of God, these are sons of God. 

The most perfect example of the law of struggle 
and of victory through apparent defeat is shown by 
the life of Jesus. He came unto his own and his own 
received him not. The temptation of hunger, of spirit- 
ual pride, and love of power were met. The Eden of 
Galilee was left for Jerusalem and there in the su- 
preme hour when the world needed a loyal Master, 
Christ was true and in the thrice repeated prayer in 
the garden, "O my father, if it be possible, let this cup 
pass away from me ; nevertheless, not as I will, but as 
thou wilt," showed the greatness of self-sacrifice. Then 
from seeming defeat, the death on the cross, Chris- 
tianity became regnant as the redeeming force of the 
world. 

But now you say all this is true. I recognize 
struggle and its need in nature, in the world of affairs, 
and in the lives of saints and heroes. Jesus Christ is 
our master, through his struggle with the forces of evil 
even to giving up his life for the sake of truth. But 
is there not some way I can escape from the necessity 



CHARACTER THROUGH STRUGGLE. 77 

of struggle, some way to escape into ease and lassitude ? 
No. Character comes only through struggle and the 
making of character is the end and aim of life. The 
family relation is not so much to make men happier as 
make them better. Parents can be helpful to their 
children but cannot remove from them the necessity 
of struggle. Financial independence does away with 
a certain kind of struggle but with it comes the ques- 
tion whether wealth shall be a means or an end; does 
the money own the man or the man the money? The 
story is told of a father who shielded his son from 
struggle, solved all moral questions for him, would not 
allow him to enlist in the War of the Rebellion, be- 
came in fact, an arbiter and judge for all his son's acts. 
What was the result? Thrown on the world to shift 
for himself after his father's death, his undeveloped 
will, moral sense, and ideals were not strong enough 
and he died a disgraceful death. Not slothful ease and 
contentment, but sacrifice, effort, and struggle is the 
law of life. Religion gives its sanction, for by means 
of struggle upward do we become children of God. 

The history of the world and man's spiritual life 
begins with a garden and ends with a city, — the holy 
city of new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven 
from God and accompanied by the declaration that the 
tabernacle of God is with men — the fitting culmina- 
tion of long ages of struggle and aspiration, the 
domination of the spirit over the flesh, of mind over 
matter, of the unseen over the seen, of the eternal 
over the temporal. Difficulty, struggle, progress is 
the law. Ever on and upward to higher and nobler 
ideals. No dead fact stranded on the shore of the ob- 



78 CHARACTER THROUGH STRUGGLE. 

livious years, but living truth gained by struggle is 
the permanent aspiration of humanity. Paradise lost 
means manhood gained — victory through defeat, for de- 
feat is nothing but education ; nothing but the first step 
to something better, struggle being ever the law of life. 
God in his love and mercy drives men out of their 
Edens of ease and selfishness into the world of strug- 
gle and thus into the achievement of character. 

"Better to stem with heart and hand 
The roaring tide of life, than lie 
Unmindful, on its flowery strand, 
Of God's occasions drifting by! 
Better with naked nerve to bear 
The needles of this goading air, 
Than in the lap of sensual ease, forgo 
The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know." 




VI. 



Theological Views. 



"The heart makes the theologian." — 

"He at least believed in Soul, was very sure of 
God. " — B r owning. 

"The man 
That could surround the sum of things, and spy 
The heart of God and the secrets of his empire 
Would speak but love. With love the bright result 
Would change the hue of intermediate things 
And make one of all theology." — Chalmers. 

"And no man putteth new wine into old wine-skins ; 
else the wine will burst the skins, and the wine per- 
isheth, and the skins: but they put new wine into fresh 
wine-skins." — Mark ii. 22. 



THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 



(Read to Ordination Council, Congregational Church, 
Whiting, Vermont, December 2, 1902). 

"Man, with the eternal fire of youth in his eyes, 
has created gods in the past, and will create new ones 
in the future," is a statement in the realm of religion 
that man is the measure of all things. Men may differ 
as to what emphasis should be put upon this statement, 
but as a man thinketh so is he. Show me your man 
and I will show you his god; or show me a man's god 
and I will show you the man. The important ques- 
tion then in all religious thinking is, What is man? 
Man, in any true sense of the word, is a unit, and must 
be viewed as such ; but, for purposes of analysis, man 
may be said to be a physical being, a social being, an 
intellectual being, and a spiritual being. 

As a physical being, man comes into the world, 
lives and dies ; and in these facts is like all other ani- 
mals. He is not a creature by himself, nor does he be- 
long to a separate order or class from other animals. 
As a physical being he is a vertebrate, a mammal, 
and a primate, who has developed from a common 
stock of primates, back to which we may trace the con- 
verging pedigree of monkeys and lemurs. Thus man 
is a product of development, of evolution. But the 
emphasis should be laid on what he is, not on what he 



82 THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 

was once. As Dr. Courtney says, "I was an an- 
thropoid ape once, a mollusc, an ascidian, a bit of 
protoplasm; but, whether by chance or providence, I 
am not now. When I was an ape, I thought as an ape, 
I acted as an ape, I lived as an ape ; but when I became 
a man I put away apish things. Man's moral nature 
is what it is, not what it was." Man and the ape then 
are from a common ancestry, but one developed and 
stayed an ape, while man became man, and is still de- 
veloping. 

The early history of man was almost wholly phys- 
ical. The struggle for existence taxed all his energies 
and resources, and only the fittest survived. Scientists 
tell us that from the earliest beginnings of life physical 
variations went on, and that from the pectoral fin of 
a fish developed the jointed fore-limb of the mammal 
with its five-toed paw, and thence with slighter varia- 
tion the human arm with its hand, while the rudimen- 
tary pigment spot of the worm by the development 
and differentiation of successive layers gave place to 
the variously constructed eyes of insects, mollusca, 
and vertebrates. Man still repeats the history of the 
race, for the human embryo at certain stages of growth 
is like that of various animals, and cannot be differ- 
entiated from them. The child in infancy, youth, and 
manhood develops, and stages of savagery, barbarism, 
and civilization can be easily traced. 

Alan then is a physical being, but he is also an in- 
tellectual being. As we have seen, man at first was 
but an animal, and might have remained such but that 
changes in the brain became more important and help- 
ful in the struggle for existence than mere physical 



THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 83 

changes. Even at the present day, the physical dif- 
ferences between men are very slight, but intellectually 
many men are as wide apart as the poles. Brute 
strength is no match for intellectual power. The at- 
tribute that makes man superior to all other animals 
is the power of thought. As Pascal well says, "Man 
is but a reed, but he is a thinking reed; a blow may 
crush him, but he unlike the animals knows from 
whence the blow falls." Through the power of 
thought man's life becomes an ordered one, the uni- 
verse is seen to be a coherent whole, the world and its 
varied phenomena are reduced to unity. Man is cap- 
able of thinking God's thoughts after him. 

Man is not only a physical and an intellectual be- 
ing, but also a social being. Man's association with his 
fellows has been a strong factor in his development. 
We are indeed members one of another. Man is natu- 
rally gregarious, and the home, the state, and the 
church are the embodiment of this principle. One of 
the great causes of man's intellectual and moral growth 
was the lengthening of infancy and the consequent 
increase of brain surface. Among many animals the 
young are born, live and die within a comparative 
short period of time, and their special aptitudes, ten- 
dencies, or instincts are born with them; but it is not 
so with man, who comes into the world almost help- 
less, and continues to develop through a long period 
of infancy reaching into years before the individual 
becomes a mature man. 

Two results of this prolonged period of infancy in 
man are important. First, the prolonged period of 
development means that the brain of man is plastic for 



84 THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 

a long period of time, and is thus susceptible of devel- 
opment through education. The child is father of the 
man, but years are needed to bring the promise and 
potency to full fruition. Man is born not so much a 
person as a candidate for personality. The second 
result of prolonged infancy in man is the need of 
parental care from birth to maturity, and from this 
need written by God in the constitution of man came 
the home. 

"Resting on earth, but leading up to heaven, 
Like Bethel's ladder, home to man was given; 
First ray of love in self's benighted life, 
The care of other self in maid and wife. 
Then pity quickened for the crying child, 
Last, duty, and the man that roamed the wild, 
Chief brute in cunning, but with death his goal, 
Breathed on by God became a living soul." 

Out of the family life, the care for others than one's 
self have came morality, love, self-sacrifice, and with- 
out their ennobling influence man is but a brute. In- 
dividual selfishness gave place to altruism, and from 
the home came the state, the church, and civilization, 
as we see them today. 

Man besides being a physical, an intellectual, 
and a social being is also a spiritual being. 

"For unless above himself he can 
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man." 

Man remains today what he always has been 
and always must be by his constitution — a religious 



THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 85 

animal. Whether the Greek "anthropos" etymolo- 
gically signifies or not "one who looks upward," it in 
that sense rightly designates man. Man in the dawn- 
ing of consciousness was differentiated from the ani- 
mal, for as we read in Genesis, "God created man in 
his own image, in the image of God created he him." 
The Platonic view of the soul as a spiritual substance, 
an effluence from Godhead, which under certain con- 
ditions becomes incarnated in perishable forms of mat- 
ter, is another way of stating the same truth, "From 
rudimentary beginnings through countless ages the 
soul life has become the predominating element in 
man," says John Fiske, "and whereas, in its rude be- 
ginnings, the psychical or soul life was but an ap- 
pendage to the body, in fully developed humanity the 
body is but the vehicle of the soul." In the words of 
Paul, "Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but 
that which is natural, then that which is spiritual." 

The fact that development becomes intellectual, 
social, and spiritual shows that nature's work from the 
beginning has tended towards the development of per- 
sonality, the greatest thing in the world, that man is 
a self-conscious moral being, a person and not a 
thing; that as a person man is endowed with con- 
scious free will and reason ; that he has physical, men- 
tal, social, and spiritual characteristics; that behind all 
force and all appearance is a conscious purpose and 
end; that evolution is God's method of work, that 
through the study of man and the world we come to 
God, the Maker, Creator, and Preserver of all life. 
Theism is the only key, the only rational explanation to 
the facts presented by man and the universe. Athe- 



86 THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 

ism is a confession of intellectual and moral despair, 
and makes the world a chaos and not a cosmos. 

The ultimate end and explanation of all thought 
and life is God. There is a power not ourselves which 
makes for righteousness. Back of all movement there 
must be a mover. Every house has an architect, and 
the architect of the universe is God. Human thought 
may transcend for a while the limits of time and space, 
but as an ultimate fact it must postulate — "in the be- 
ginning God." The most sublime definition of God is 
that of Jesus Christ to the woman of Samaria, "God 
is a spirit/' God is transcendent and immanent, in the 
world and above it. He is the Creator and Source of 
all life, and is infinite in wisdom and power. The 
power that wells up within us in consciousness is 
the same power that keeps the planets in fheir orbits 
and controls the farthest atom of star dust, for in him 
we live and move and have our being; nearer is he 
than breathing, nearer than hands and feet. He is not 
an absentee or idle God, but is active in the world and 
among men, for there is "one God and father of all, 
who is over all, and through all, and in all." 

God reveals himself through nature. The green of 
spring, the golden of summer, the purple of autumn, 
the snow of winter, the recurrence of seed-time and 
harvest, the ebb and flow of the tides reveal the work- 
ings of an orderly purpose. The universe is every- 
where the expression of intelligence, 



'For the world was built in order, 
And the atoms march in tune." 



THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 87 

There is an underlying unity which is the result of 
rational purpose, and is capable of being understood 
because man is a rational being, and capable of think- 
ing God's thoughts after him. Through nature we 
come to nature's God. 



"The heavens declare the glory of God; 

And the firmament showeth his handy-work; 

Day unto day uttereth speech, 

And night unto night showeth knowledge." 

God reveals himself to the conscience of man. 
"There are two things," said Immanuel Kant, "which 
fill me with awe because of their sublimity — the starry 
heavens above us, and the moral law within us." God 
is not the God of the dead, but of the living, and is 
constantly revealing himself to his children. The 
Quaker doctrine of the inner light is the expression of 
a great truth, for God comes to us as to Elijah of old 
not in the wind, the fire, or the earthquake, but in the 
still small voice. 

The Bible contains a revelation of God. It is not 
the revelation itself, but the record of it, for the revela- 
tion was made through persons. The revelation is a 
progressive one, for "first the blade, then the ear, and 
then the full corn in the ear." Abraham gets a larger 
glimpse of God than his neighbors, rises up out of the 
mire of heathenism, and becomes the father of the 
faithful. Gradually men come to a larger and nobler 
idea of God as shown by Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, and 
the other prophets. Job and the Psalms are the ex- 
pression of a widening and deepening thought. Then 



88 THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 

the New Testament gives us the revelation of God 
through Christianity. The truth of the Bible is not 
true because it is in the Bible, but it is in the Bible be- 
cause it is true. The Bible is true because it makes 
men true. The movement of Biblical interpretation is 
from the letter to the spirit. In the words of noble 
John Robinson, "The Lord hath more truth and light 
yet to break forth out of his holy word." 

Another revelation of God comes through literature, 
and especially through the thoughts of the great poets. 
The poems of Whittier entitled the "Eternal Good- 
ness" and "Our Master" strike a deep spiritual note; 
Tennyson's "In Memoriam" is an expression of faith 
in spite of doubt. Browning's optimism is the ex- 
pression of his belief in the living God. 

"God's in his heaven, 
All's right in the world." 

All inspiration is one, and differs not in kind but in 
degree. The poets are the prophets of today. 

"Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, 
And not on paper leaves or leaves of stone, 
Each age, each kindred adds a verse to it, 
While sings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud, 
While thunder's surges hurst on cliffs of cloud, 
Still at the prophet's feet the nations sit." 

History shows there is a providence that directs 
the affairs of men. The fact that the world is a moral 
order is brought out in letters of gold on the pages of 
history. Napoleon believed that God was on the side 



LofC. 



THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 89 

of the heaviest artillery, but even he failed as soon as 
he fought only for his own aggrandizement, and the 
establishment of a Napoleonic dynasty. The lonely exile 
at St. Helena must have realized that the stars in their 
courses fought against Sisera. Babylon, Egypt, and 
Rome have been weighed in the balance and found 
wanting. Tyranny and moral deceit brought Charles 
I. to the block. It was no accident that the Puritans 
and not the Spaniards settled New England. Wash- 
ington and Lincoln were leaders raised up by God for 
great needs, as were Moses and Joshua of old. There 
is a providence in the history of nations and individuals 
which shapes their ends rough hew them how they 
will. 

God reveals himself then through nature, the moral 
conscience of man, the Bible, literature, and especially 
poetry, and the movements of history, but beyond and 
above all these God reveals himself through person- 
ality. The supreme revelation of God is through the 
person of Jesus Christ. "He who hath seen him hath 
seen the father." "Love is God. Christ is our highest 
and completest historic expression of love. Therefore 
Christ is the Son of God, our interpreter of the divine, 
our vision of the Father." Christ brings man to an at- 
one-ment with God, and the value of his life and death 
lies in its moral efficacy, it being a revelation of God, 
showing his love, purpose and character as the Father 
of all mankind. I reject the idea of a substitutional 
or sacrificial atonement as dishonoring both to God and 
man. The saving power of Christ consists in his 
manifestation of the Father's love. The prodigal son 
had no go-between between his father and himself, 



90 THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 

for when he came to himself he went directly to his 
father, who fell on his neck and kissed him. Jesus 
Christ taught his disciples direct access to God, his 
Father, their Father, and our Father. Christianity is 
doctrine of a person, the power of an endless life. The 
world is full of truth, men know the difference be- 
tween good and evil, but the great need is some dy- 
namic, some power to translate theory into fact, 
ideals into character. Jesus Christ came that men 
might have life and have it more abundantly. The 
transcendent power of a divine life showing men the 
love of God and redeeming their lives from sin is seen 
in the person of Jesus Christ. Through him the fa- 
therhood of God and the brotherhood of man are made 
a living reality. The life of Jesus Christ is the life 
for all men to lead. We can follow him, for Christ 
differs from other men in degree and not in kind. All 
divinity is one, man is made in the image of God, and 
contains a spark of divinity. Christianity, however, is 
not a theory, a speculation, or a philosophy, but a life 
and a living process. The true Christian is 

"Not he that repeateth the name, 
But he that doeth the will." 

Jesus Christ is the supreme revelation of God the 
Father, because he exemplified in his own life the 
character of love. We repeat with the poets : 

"O thou great Friend to all the sons of men, 
Who once appeared in humblest guise below, 
Sin to rebuke, to break the captive's chain, 

And call thy brethren forth from want and woe. 



THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 91 

We look to thee! thy truth is still the Light, 
Which guides the nations, groping on their way, 

Stumbling and falling in disastrous night, 
Yet hoping ever for the perfect day. 

Yes; thou art still the Life, thou art the Way 

The holiest know; Light, Life, the Way of heaven! 

And they who dearest hope and deepest pray, 

Toil by the Light, Life, Way which thou hast given." 

"Through him our first fond prayers are said 
Our lips of childhood frame, 
The last low whispers of our dead 
Are burdened with his name. 

O Lord and Master of us all! 

Whate'er our name or sign, 
We own thy sway, we hear thy call, 

We test our lives by thine." 

Salvation is of two kinds, social and personal, and 
the strands of both are mixed together as in the pattern 
of a cloth. To change the figure they are the two sides 
of the same shield. We are all dependent one upon 
the other. Our standard of living, our thought, and 
our religion are determined to a great extent by our 
surroundings. The welfare of one is the welfare of 
another. The failure of Baring Brothers in England 
produces a money stringency in America. War in 
China reduces the demand, and thus the price for cot- 
ton cloth. The boy brought up in the slums amidst 
degrading influences tends to become a criminal ; the 
boy brought up amidst educational advantages tends to 
become a scholar. The Chinaman tends to be a fol- 
lower of Confucius, the Turk a Mohammedan, and the 



92 THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 

Italian or Spaniard a Catholic. No man liveth to him- 
self and no 'man dieth to himself. Society is a vital 
organism and not a mere aggregation of mechanical 
parts. There is a solidarity of the race and humanity 
is being slowly lifted to nobler intellectual, moral, and 
religious heights. The home, the church, the school, 
and the state are all working together for the elevation 
of the race. All factors are needed, for from brute to 
man, from savagery to civilization is a long cry, and 
there is yet much to be done. The climbing of man 
out of animalism into some "measure of the stature of 
Christ" shows us, however, that 

"Through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of 
the suns." 

On the other hand, salvation is also* individual. 
Man has the power to change his surroundings, and to 
a great extent makes his own heaven and hell. 

"I sent my Soul through the Invisible, 
Some letter of that After-life to spell; 
And by and by my Soul return'd to me, 
And answered 'I myself am Heaven and Hell.' " 

Jesus Christ came to redeem men from their sins, 
to show them a more excellent way, and to fill them 
with love so that they will return unto their Father. 
The prodigal son after spending his inheritance in 
riotous living had a hard time of it, but the punish- 
ment was remedial and brought him to himself. "The 
way of the transgressor is hard." Punishment must 



THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 93 

continue as long as sin exists, for God hates the sin 
while loving the sinner. God unites justice and mercy, 
and we must say as of old, Abraham said at Sodom: 
"Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" Other- 
wise we cannot account for all the good in the world, 
or hope and work for the ultimate triumph of good 
over evil. 

"Who fathoms the eternal thought? 
Who talks of scheme and plan? 
The Lord is God, He needeth not 
The poor device of man. 

The wrong that pains my soul below 

I dare not throne above; 
I know not of His hate ... I know 

His goodness and His love. 

And so beside the silent sea 

I wait the muffled oar; 
No harm from Him can come to me 

On ocean or on shore. 

I know not where His islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air, 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond His love and care." 

Salvation is by character and not otherwise. Any 
effort to get a man into heaven is of little worth except 
heaven be got into the man. Life is a school for the 
training of character after the likeness of Jesus Christ. 
Death is but a shifting of the scenes, and the same 
moral law must hold in the next world as in this. God 



94 THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 

is behind the race, and his purpose must be a redeemed 
humanity, for he has made us and not we ourselves. 
If God is for us, who then can be against us? Any 
other belief is the royal road to atheism. 

"O yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill, 
To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
Defects of doubt, and taint of blood; 

That nothing walks with aimless feet, 
That not one life shall be destroyed, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 

When God hath made the pile complete." 

From the foregoing belief as to God and man comes 
a belief as to immortality. Man is made in the moral 
image of God, and life is a school for the develop- 
ment of character. Self-conscious personality is a de- 
velopment of all life, the end and goal toward which 
nature's work has always been tending. We expect 
immortality for it, because as Professor T. H. Greene 
well says, "A system providing for the development 
of personality cannot be expected to issue in the ex- 
tinction of personality." The belief that personality is 
the end and aim of creative energy, compels the belief 
that the soul's career is not ended with this life. Other- 
wise life is a riddle without any meaning. Character is 
denied time for coming to a full and beautiful fruition, 
for our days here are as swift as a weaver's shuttle in 
their going, and we bring our years to an end as a tale 
that is told. The coming of Jesus brought immortality 
to light, and gave the world a higher and nobler view 



THEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 95 

of life, and consequently of destiny. The propulsive 
power of an endless life radiated from his personality, 
and inspired his disciples after the seeming defeat of 
all their hopes and aspirations by the crucifixion of 
their Master to go out and preach unto all the world 
not a dead but a living Christ. The old view of mingled 
hope and doubt comes out in the words of Socrates : 
"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our 
ways, I to die, and you to live— which is better, God 
only knows." The Christian note of hope and faith is 
thus struck by Paul, "For me to live is Christ, and to 
die is gain. I am now ready to be offered, and the time 
of departure is at hand to be with Christ, which is far 
better." 

Man then is a religious being, for God is our fa- 
ther ; Jesus Christ is the spiritual leader of the race, 
our image of the Father ; life is a school for the build- 
ing of Christian character and the home, the state, and 
the church are institutions instituted by God for that 
purpose ; eternal life begins here and now, for God is 
not the God of the dead but of the living. Man is not 
what he is, but what he aspires to be. "Thou hast 
made us for thyself, O Lord," says Augustine, "and 
we are restless till we rest in Thee." Men come and 
go, ideas change, thought is enlarged or narrowed, 
nations wax old and perish, but behind and beyond all 
change God remains; theology changes, but religion 
abides. 

"Our little systems have their day, 

They have their day and cease to be; 
They are but broken lights of Thee, 
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they." 










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